EDITORIAL – Helping the OFWs

Filipinos don’t scare easily – especially Filipinos protecting their jobs. Even when suicide bombings by Palestinians escalated in Israel, Filipinos working there refused to leave; some claimed Israel was safer than the Philippines. Even when wounded by the bombings, some undocumented Filipinos reportedly refused to seek treatment for fear that they would be found out and deported. And at the height of the Gulf War, only a few Filipinos agreed to be evacuated from the Middle East, staying put even at the centers of conflict in Iraq and Kuwait.

This time, as Part II of the Gulf War looms, Filipinos are again refusing to be displaced by a conflict that Americans vow will be much shorter than Operation Desert Storm. A survey conducted by the Middle East Preparedness Team showed that a majority of the overseas Filipino workers or OFWs in that region prefer to stay put in case war erupts between the United States and Iraq. Even before the survey, Philippine diplomatic and labor personnel in the Middle East had reported that OFWs were more worried about their jobs than about being caught in the crossfire in case of war. The presence of that army of Filipino workers – 1.4 million strong – in a region riddled with conflict has made President Arroyo hedge in backing the US plan to attack Iraq.

The government is doing the requisite preparations for possible evacuation of OFWs in the Middle East. But what most OFWs will prefer is reassurance that they can continue working and will keep their jobs once the conflict is over. The government can only ask the host governments to protect the OFWs. Communication links can also be facilitated between OFWs and their loved ones back home. Despite advances in telecommunications technology, many Filipinos still have no access to cell phones or other means of communicating quickly with relatives overseas. Unless the government can guarantee OFWs similar jobs back home, those workers aren’t returning to the Philippines.